The present invention relates generally to endoscopic television systems in which an endoscopic image is: picked up by an endoscope by way of an optical system or a semiconductor image convertor integrated in the endoscope; supplied as a video signal to a television monitor; and then displayed on a portion of the television monitor screen in the form of a circular endoscopic image, other portions of the screen being left free of images. The invention relates specifically to an endoscopic television system, as described, including means and methods for correlating the endoscopic image with documentary information concerning patient data and operating characteristics of related apparatus in which the documentary information is mixed in with the video signal and supplied to the television monitor so that the information is displayed in the image-free edge zones of the screen of the television monitor alongside of the endoscopic image.
Endoscopic television systems are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,439,030 and German Patent DE-PS No. 34 36 057 in which video signals representative of endoscopic images are generated by television cameras or semiconductor image convertor devices such as a charge coupled device (CCD) incorporated within endoscopes. The phrase "endoscopic image" refers throughout this specification to any image, a signal representative of which, is generated by a suitably adapted endoscope. The video signals are transmitted to suitable display apparatus such as television monitors on which the endoscopic images are then displayed. In all of these endoscopic television systems, an endoscopic image is displayed on a portion of a rectangular monitor screen substantially in the form of a circular image, the remaining portion or portions of the screen being image free and defining what is referred to herein as image-free edge zones surrounding the endoscope image.
During an endoscopic inspection, certain patient-specific data or information, such as the patient's name and age, as well as the time of the inspection, and the like, have to be recorded, so as to be correlated with the specific endoscopic image displayed. Also, certain apparatus-specific characteristics data, as well as certain operating characteristics data of external patient treatment apparatus, if, for example, an operative or therapeutic intervention accompanies the endoscopic inspection, have to be associated with the displayed image, for the same reason.
In the past, the above-mentioned data or information, i.e., the information necessary for the documentation of the endoscopic inspection, either have been recorded on a separate recording medium and then correlated with an image after the inspection, or have been incorporated in the displayed image in the form of a separate partial image, for example, in the form of a rectangular fade-in into the displayed image.
Both of these methods are disadvantageous. On the one hand, upon recording documentation data separately from the endoscopic image, a specific correlation to the video image has subsequently to be carried out. This is very time consuming and requires considerable apparatus and manual work expenditure. On the other hand, the fading in of a partial television image onto the endoscopic image requires the use of a separate trick mixing desk and a separate input or convertor device to convert the documentation information into video signals and to fade-in the same by way of the trick mixing desk in the form of a partial image overlapping the overall image.